Alii Park Place, Alii Cove .... (Kailua, Waikoloa Village: Valentine's day, to rent, condos)

[MauiBound]

We have narrowed it down to Kona, we think. Soooo.... what info can you all give me about Alii Park Place or Alii Cove condos. We are about to go look at the place over the 4th of July. We may make an offer.
We are almost 100% sure if Kona, but I am wondering about the vog. (I don't usually have any issues with allergies.) This will be a second home for us, doing the snowbird thing from Alaska.
Thanks all.

[OpenD]

Sorry to say, Kailua-Kona gets hit pretty hard by vog, and from what people have said in the many previous discussions of this topic here, it affects different folks in different ways. Some, probably most, have little problem with it except on the worst days, while others find it affects them severely, and unfortunately it's not predictable who has what reaction. That's why our best advice is to rent in the area for a while before making a long-term commitment, to see how you do under actual conditions.

You can use the Search function here to pull up previous discussions... use Advanced Search, Search Word vog, search archive area Big Island, and return results as Posts. That will give you quite a bit of relevant information.

Good luck!

[Due]

I agree with OpenD.

Also: Even if you "think" it's Kona, do yourself a favor and investigate other areas of the island. IMHO: don't rely solely on info off of the internet, although this forum is relatively unbiased and informative.

We originally thought Kona too:
we go there often (don't mind the drive), but the peace and tranquility of our current location can't be found in Kona.

Best of luck!

[whtviper1]

I go to Kona at least a couple of times a month - I'm hard pressed to think of the last time I saw blue sky - it isn't that brown smog you see in LA, but it is a very distinctive gray haze. It seems far worse now than lets say 3-5 years ago.

Vog may not affect you at all - I see plenty of runners on Alii Drive all the time, on the flip side, I always get people calling in sick when it hits Oahu hard.

[hotzcatz]

Yup to everything said above. It's best to rent for awhile so you can experience the actual conditions before you decide to buy. It's difficult to find a perfect spot from just online. Although, more than likely, you'd hopefully be able to make it work, but there's a big difference between "acceptable" and "wonderful". Considering it will be your house for half the year, finding the right one makes a huge difference.

The different areas on the Big Island are pretty easy to at least drive through on a several day tour, would you be able to at least glance at the different areas to get a vague idea of what's available? Are there any particular things you are looking for? Perhaps the forum folks could point you towards a place you might like?

As for the specifics on the Ali'i Park Place and the Ali'i Cove, I'm not personally familiar enough with either one of them to be of much use giving advice.

[terracore]

Originally Posted by whtviper1

I go to Kona at least a couple of times a month - I'm hard pressed to think of the last time I saw blue sky - it isn't that brown smog you see in LA, but it is a very distinctive gray haze. It seems far worse now than lets say 3-5 years ago.

Vog may not affect you at all - I see plenty of runners on Alii Drive all the time, on the flip side, I always get people calling in sick when it hits Oahu hard.

The unhealthy aspects of vog occur due to the reaction of sulfur dioxide with oxygen and sunlight. In other words, the further away it gets from the volcano, the more time to react, and the worse it gets. If it didn't get diluted so much in the process, it would be many times worse than it currently is by the time it gets to Oahu.

An alternative explanation is that people are just looking for a reason to call in sick.

But to answer this original thread question, I don't know anybody who lives in Kona who doesn't report some negative aspect of the vog. Even if it didn't affect your health at all, it will affect your view. Hopefully when you go look at Kona properties, it is during an "average" vog day so you will know that some days are worse (or much worse) and not on a rare-but-does-occur no or low vog day and you think "wow, this ain't so bad, what does everybody complain about?" Also, the effect of vog on a person is accumulative. If you suffer no symptoms from a few days or weeks of exposure, that doesn't mean that you won't.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by terracore

An alternative explanation is that people are just looking for a reason to call in sick.

In my experience, if you have a sick leave policy - there will always be a group of employees who feel entitled to take that time off whether they are really sick or not.

Moving to a PTO (Paid Time Off) program usually is a quick cure for those chronically sick, especially on Monday's and Friday's.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by terracore

The unhealthy aspects of vog occur due to the reaction of sulfur dioxide with oxygen and sunlight. In other words, the further away it gets from the volcano, the more time to react, and the worse it gets.

That's why vog is worse on the Kona side, after traveling around the Ka'u district from Kilauea, and also why vog is worst in the afternoon, when it has had time to cook in the sunlight.

[MauiBound]

Thank you for the info. We are also looking at condos in Waikoloa Beach area. We were set on Waikoloa Village but the windy comments I kept finding totally put my husband off.
I was mostly wondering if the vog was less down near the water in Kona. We were in Keauhou for a week at Valentine's Day and it was voggy then, but I wasn't sure if it was just cloudy or voggy. It was also cloudy in Waikoloa at that time as well.
We have visited many times but only for one to two week stretches, so haven't had the chance to live there yet.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by MauiBound

I was mostly wondering if the vog was less down near the water in Kona.

Not in my experience - as I'm generally always near the water when I'm in Kona.